Is 'Goodbye' a Skill?

I’m pretty young, all things considered. I’ve only been out of university for a few years, but I’m starting to notice myself saying “goodbye” more frequently.

I move. Others move. Friends part ways. Couples break up. People die. “Goodbye” isn’t always something you say, either. Often it’s something you feel; sometimes it’s already too late to be spoken. I have many “goodbye”s behind me, but many more ahead of me.

“Goodbye” hurts. It’s just so final. What do you say to someone knowing it’s the last time you’ll say anything to them? Maybe you wish them well, and maybe you mean it. But isn’t there a selfish instinct too? Maybe I do wish you well, but don’t be as well as you were with me. Olivia Rodrigo feels me on this one:

So the question: is “goodbye” a skill?

Is it something that gets easier? Will I get better at having a “final” conversation? Will I get better at moving on with my life knowing they’re not in it? If so, is getting better at “goodbye” a good thing?

The first step seems to be getting better at noticing “goodbye.” There are plenty of “goodbyes” that are unnoticeable. Car accidents, sudden health declines, etc happen every day. But these tend to be the exception, not the rule. When you leave a job, a class, or a city, you might say “goodbye ? ” with a bold question mark. But it won’t really be—you’ll wish them a happy birthday, comment on their instagram post, maybe send them a meme or two. Still, eventually, you’ll interact for the last time (and probably not even notice).

Say you are getting seen off at the airport by someone you care very deeply for, and you do realize it will be the last time see eachother. Also say you are an open-minded reader, so you subscribe to all the above. You know how this ends: you’ll text for a while before the combined entropy of your diverging lives slowly but steadily erodes your mutual attitudes towards eachother into utter indifference. Would you change what you say to them on that final day?

I might. By definition, when you interact for the final time, even if you did know it was the final time, you probably wouldn’t be so bent out of shape about it. But, that doesn’t change the time you shared together. They could have been your favorite person. They could have changed your life. They could have saved your life. By allowing entropy to do the work, words go unsaid. If you can realize it’s the final interaction, then you can be deliberate in making sure they know exactly how they impacted you.

That’s the theory anyways. I fear ”exactly” covers up some ugly detail there. I want to believe it’s true that there is exists a series of parting words I can say so that they know every way they impacted me. And, I want to believe if they know that, then I can walk away with satisfaction and closure.

But neither of those beliefs can possibly be true, right? The human experience has never been something that language can losslessly communicate. And when we grieving someone’s absence, though we may grieve the things they never knew, we still grieve the plain fact of their absence.

Then what about entropy? Why not just let it fade? On the surface, it’s the perfect arrangement. When you do miss them, you can reach out. And by the time you stop reaching out, you will have already ceased to miss them. It’s painless.

I guess it just feels hollow. Like an admission that the time you shared didn’t really mean anything after all. If you managed to reach a point where you drift apart to utter indifference, then how could the time you spent together be that important? I want to believe it’s a weakness of the human condition that someone can mean so much to us and yet we still inevitably forget them.

There will be some “goodbyes” that don’t afford you the courtesy of the choice. Whether it’s spoken or felt, you will know it’s “goodbye” and you will know for certain you’ll never see someone again. Whether or not you can train to get along better after these, I do not know.

There are defensive stratiges for sure. You can callous yourself so that you avoid getting too close to people who can hurt you. More precisely, you avoid lending the power to hurt you to others. This isn’t the answer, though I can think of more than a couple times I’ve done it. It isn’t so much a strategy as a trauma response. It’s something that ought to be treated, as if it were an illness.

The “Disney” fairy tale take would be the opposite—it’s the relationships that can hurt us which bring us the most joy. Giving others the power to hurt is the price of admission of love, not a side effect. You must show your vulnerability at the door.

Now, fuck Disney, and fuck all that. But, I fear it’s true. I prefer the way it’s put in the opening and closing lines of Lucky by Dehd:

If a friend was grieving a loss and you said, “Don’t be sad it’s over. Feel lucky it happened,” then you would be an asshole. But, I’m not sure you would be wrong. It doesn’t make me feel better knowing I’m lucky, but I hope it can make me grateful.

More on the nose is a quote attributed to C.S. Lewis after the passing of his wife:

Lewis published a firsthand account of his grief, appropriately titled A Grief Observed under a pseudonym. Contrary to expectation, this quote was not included in his writing. It wasn’t until long after Lewis’s death in 1963 that the film Shadowlands was released as a dramatic retelling of Lewis’s life and experience grieving his wife. Shadowlands’s stand-in Jack is given the quote:

Which was later paraphrased and attributed to C.S. Lewis.

Detaching the words from their author, to me they seem true. If “goodbye” isn’t a skill, then maybe it’s paying down your tab to the universe. I hope you won’t find it weird when I don’t say “goodbye” but “I think it’s time I closed out”.